JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – An East Tennessee State University student who donned a gorilla mask and passed out bananas at a Black Lives Matter protest in September was indicted by a grand jury for civil rights intimidation last week.

The incident occurred in the school’s Borchuk Plaza near the Sherrod Library on campus, a school designated free speech zone, where 18-year-old Tristan Rettke allegedly taunted Black Lives Matter supporters holding a protest in the area, the Johnson City Press reports.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

Video of the incident streamed to Facebook showed Rettke wearing overalls and a gorilla mask as he offered bananas tied to a rope and carried a burlap sack emblazoned with the Confederate flag.

Thomas Madison, the student who streamed his encounter with Rettke online using his cell phone, questioned Rettke about the stunt, and Rettke allegedly told Madison “I identify as a gorilla” and “I’m doing what you’re doing.”

“I took that as a reference to me being black,” Madison testified. “And I took him wearing a mask at a Black Lives Matter protest … the fact that black people historically have been called monkeys.”

Student Jaylen Grimes told jurors he organized the BLM really to protest police shootings of black men, and allege Rettke used the rope to slice through the bananas, which he took as a direct threat to black students.

Another BLM organizer, Jeremiah Pearson, likened the banana trick to “snapping someone’s neck.”

“I never felt that type of fear in my life,” he alleged.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

According to Fox 17, “witnesses testified that Rettke used racial slurs,” though news reports and video of the incident do not detail the alleged slurs.

Rettke’s defense attorney, Patrick Denton, asked witnesses if they may have misconstrued Rettke’s message at the rally, but they insisted his intent was to intimidate. Rettke has since left the school.

Denton also pointed out that Rettke, like his accusers, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech.

Regardless, Assistant District Attorney Erin McArdle announced this week that the Washington County grand jury indicted Rettke on two counts of civil rights intimidation, two counts of disorderly conduct and disrupting a meeting, WATE reports.

Rettke is currently free on a $10,000 bond as he awaits his first appearance in criminal court on April 10, according to the Johnson City Press.